Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - DynamInt

Dr. Paola Valerio

Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin – Juristische Fakultät, DFG-Graduiertenkolleg DynamInt (seit Januar 2026)

 

 

Research Project

Legal Designs and the Financialization of Nature: A Comparative Analysis on Nature as an Investible

 

Vita

Dr. Paola Valerio is a post-doctoral researcher at DynamInt since January 2026, working in comparative private law and environmental governance. Her research examines the impacts of market-oriented and financialized forms of environmental governance, assessing how they interact with traditional legal frameworks in Europe and other regions worldwide.

Paola studied law at Sapienza University of Rome, where she obtained her Master’s Degree in 2018 (Merit-based Scholarship and Laureata Eccellente), her Second Level Master’s Degree in 2020, and her Ph.D in 2025 (Sapienza Scholarship), with a final dissertation in comparative private law titled “The financialization of nature”. During her studies, she has been an exchange student at Columbia Law School in New York (International Mobility Scholarship, 2017) and a visiting student at the Institute of European and Comparative Law of the University of Oxford (Alpa Scholarship, 2023). She also attended summer courses at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa (2019), Erasmus University in Rotterdam (2023), the University of Amsterdam (2024) and the University of Insubria in Como (2024); moreover, she participated as a speaker in conferences and workshops in several European universities and research centers.

Besides her academic activity, Paola has been a legal intern at the Coordinating Division of the Banking and Financial Ombudsman at Banca d’Italia (2019–2020) and a research intern at the Department of Markets and Payment Systems, again at Banca d’Italia (2021). In addition, she completed her legal traineeship at the Avvocatura Generale dello Stato and she passed the Bar exam in the district of Rome (2022).

After obtaining her Ph.D., she has been a research fellow in Comparative Law at the University of Genoa and a teaching assistant in Advanced Constitutional Law – Regulation in Economics at Bocconi University of Milan.

Since 2025, Paola is a member of the research group on “Anthropocene and Economic Democracy: The Contribution of Legal Comparison” at Sapienza University of Rome.

 

Publications (Selection)

 

  • La decisione della giuria nel caso Energy Transfer v. Greenpeace: profili di interesse e significato unitario (The Jury’s Verdict in Energy Transfer v. Greenpeace: Issues of Interest and Unitary Significance), in Osservatorio sul Costituzionalismo Ambientale, 2025

 

  • La sentenza Loper Bright nel quadro del rapporto tra le corti statunitensi e la regolazione in materia di ambiente (The Loper Bright judgment in the context of the relationship between U.S. courts and environmental regulation), in Osservatorio sul Costituzionalismo Ambientale, 2024

 

  • Il controllo giurisdizionale sulle determinazioni della Environmental Protection Agency e la marginalizzazione dei propositi di tutela della salute e dell’ambiente (Judicial review of the determinations of the Environmental Protection Agency and the marginalisation of health and environmental protection purposes), in Politica del diritto, 2, 2024

 

  • Il dialogo tra condizionalità ambientale, tutele costituzionali e libertà economiche nel contesto della crisi naturale e climatica (The dialogue between environmental conditionality, constitutional protections and economic freedoms in the context of the natural and climate crisis), in DPCE Online, 61, 4, 2023

 

  • L’accesso all’abitazione: inefficienze normative e risposte dell’autonomia privata (Access to housing: regulatory inefficiencies and responses through private autonomy), in DPCE Online, 55, 4, 2022

 

  • Tra soggettività e giustizia sociale nel diritto privato statunitense: il ruolo della Corte Suprema (Between legal subjectivity and social justice in U.S. private law: the role of the Supreme Court), in Politica del diritto, 1, 2021

 

  • Unitary executive claims e tutela dei consumatori nel settore finanziario alla luce del caso Seila Law (Unitary executive claims and consumer protection in the financial sector in light of the Seila Lawcase), in DPCE Online, 44, 3, 2020

 

 

Lectures and Conferences (Selection)

 

  • 04.2025: Sapienza Università di Roma, “Chevron overruled? Il futuro della deferenza verso le decisioni ambientali negli Stati Uniti” (Chevron overruled? The future of deference to environmental decisions in the United States) – Ciclo di seminari “Dialoghi su transizione ecologica e trasformazioni del diritto amministrativo”

 

  • 01.2025: Università di Genova, “La regolazione dell’ambiente negli Stati Uniti
    tra Corte Suprema e agenzie federali” (Environmental regulation in the United States between the Supreme Court and federal agencies) –Dottorato di Interesse Nazionale in “Studi europei” / Curriculum “Governance multilivello e diritti fondamentali”

 

  • 9.2024: Università degli studi di Roma Tor Vergata, “Il natural capital accounting tra valorizzazione e gentrificazione” (Natural capital accounting between valorisation and gentrification) – VIII Convegno Nazionale SIRD “Ambiente, economia, società. La misura della sostenibilità nelle diverse culture giuridiche”

 

  • 10.2023: Bocconi University of Milan, “L’Environmental Protection Agency e la regolazione delle attività inquinanti” (The Environmental Protection Agency and the regulation of polluting activities) – I.CONS Italian Chapter 2023 “Politica e istituzioni tra trasformazioni e riforme”

 

  • 6.2022: Université du Luxembourg, “Legal comparison as driving force for housing rights in Europe: the CJEU and the ECHR trails” – AIDC/SIRD Young Scholars Conference “Comparative Law in the Practice of European Supranational Courts”